


Endings

by Purple_Slippers_18



Series: One Hundred Threads [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, M/M, Old Age, Retirement, Retirmentlock, Sad but a good sort of sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-10 03:25:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1154209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Purple_Slippers_18/pseuds/Purple_Slippers_18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifty years. Eighteen thousand two hundred and sixty two days. It was a long time to be alive, never mind the thirty-four years Sherlock had breathed before he'd met John, which the man in question most certainly did not. As far as Sherlock was concerned, his life – the one whose memories he hoarded like a dragon protecting caverns of stolen gold – began on that serendipitous January afternoon when two strangers met in the research labs at St. Bart's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Endings

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, dear reader.
> 
> I'm very pleased that you've found my fic, my first in the Sherlock fandom. I hope that you heeded the warnings and know that you aren't in for the happiest of stories. It's sad, true, but it's also full of nostalgia, and friendship, and hope, and peace.
> 
> And love. Lots and lots of love for these two brilliant characters.
> 
> I would also like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the One Hundred Threads Collection, a home for the Sherlock AUs I am writing. 
> 
> One of my favourite parts about fan fiction is that you can envision and read about your favourite characters meeting and falling in love over and over again in an infinity of scenerios. This collection will be very strictly AU, although some might be classified as more reimaginings of the television series' canon as we know it. 
> 
> The reason Endings is the first entry into this collection is because I think it's how many of us want to see Sherlock and John's story close, no matter what universe we imagine them in. And no matter how many AUs I end up adding to this series, this grand finale is what I will always hope for for our boys of Baker Street. 
> 
> So, please enjoy. 
> 
> Author's Note: This fic was not Brit-picked. I did my best to sort out the details on my own, but if I've missed anything, let me know and I'll make the corrections.
> 
> Pleasant reading!

**Endings**  

It was the thick gurgling of bubbles that eventually shook Sherlock out of his musings, though whether the water had been boiling for a few seconds or a few minutes was unclear. It was always somewhat jarring for the man to be taken away from his mental exercises and thrust back into reality, especially when he had been rather enjoying his thoughts. He'd been in his Mind Palace again, strolling peacefully along the longest oak panelled hallway of his hefty manor, his footfalls quiet as he tread on the hand woven Turkish rug that lined the corridor.

He was particularly proud of this rug, the most fanciful of any of the furnishings he'd imagined into existence and deemed special enough to keep tucked safely away within the walls of his unique sanctuary. The carpet was a masterpiece, lush and exotic, one hundred colours threaded together with the sort of skill that was passed down from master to apprentice, the secrets of marrying such fine fibres known only to the weavers. It was made of ahimsa silk, very soft, and Sherlock fancied that he would walk along its patterns in his bare feet so that his toes might wriggle delightedly against the lush cushioning.

He always scoffed at himself for that silly thought. It reminded him that he was acting like an effusive old codger.

Because truly, it wasn't the texture, or the length, or even the one hundred colours that made the rug such a favoured treasure inside of Sherlock's palace. Rather, it was the story that the rug told, the hieroglyphics hidden in each thread, the memories in each hue, that were so valuable to the man.   Sherlock's carpet was a chronicle, a dramatic recording of the most important time in his life, of his career as the world's only consulting detective, when he was young and quick and too clever for his own good. When he traipsed the streets of London, a wraith among the masses, a genius floating above the dreadful depths of normality. When he was on fire and burned brighter than the sun, and the world revolved around him and not some dying yellow star millions of miles in space.

And beside him, the only other satellite that mattered in the solar system Sherlock had deemed important enough to remember, his most loyal companion and partner.

John Watson.

Sherlock felt his lips twitch as he poured the boiling water over the tea leaves into a pair of matching mugs. It amused him to imagine how John would react if he were aware of the carpet that lined the Mind Palace.

' _A rug? You couldn't just hang photos on the wall like a normal person, you went and made your own Bayeux Tapestry. Brilliant, Sherlock, just bloody brilliant!_ '

That last sentence echoed in his imagination and was saturated in John's sarcasm, a tone that Sherlock had become not just fond of, but very intimate with over the course of the last five decades.

Fifty years.

Eighteen thousand two hundred and sixty two days.

It was a long time to be alive, never mind the thirty-four years Sherlock had breathed before he'd met John, which the man in question most certainly did not. As far as Sherlock was concerned, his life – the one whose memories he hoarded like a dragon protecting caverns of stolen gold – began on that serendipitous January afternoon when two strangers met in the research labs at St. Bart's.

Even in those early days it had never occurred to Sherlock – and that simple fact alone vexed the genius – that an ex-army doctor with a psychosomatic limp would become the longest, deepest, most significant relationship in his life.

John Hamish Watson was Sherlock Holmes's best friend, something the latter had never believed he could have, or even wanted, at least not until he and John had moved to Baker Street. 

But that was decades ago, and the detective and the doctor hadn't even set foot in London in nearly five years, not since Sherlock had ended all contact with New Scotland Yard and their latest crop of idiot investigators. It was such a shame that Lestrade had to go and retire and then die of something as unimaginative as a heart attack. Sherlock still hadn't forgiven the man, even if he had been dead twelve years come winter.            

Sherlock ran a hand through his thick, white curls, dispelling the distractions of his memories and returned his full focus to the task at hand. John liked his tea a certain way and Sherlock was going to get it right. He didn't have time to think about Lestrade. Or Mrs Hudson, who had died from complications of a broken hip, holding the hands of her boys as she took her last breaths in a cold, sterile hospital room. Or of Molly, who was tucked away in a nursing home in Reading, her mind ravaged by dementia and unable to remember anyone named Sherlock Holmes. Or even of Mycroft, who was as insufferable as ever, still being the British Government and who would surely outlive them all. He didn't even let himself think about John, not even as he spooned generous amounts of thick amber honey into one of the mugs.

It didn't matter about John anyway, not now that Sherlock had made up his mind. And if John didn't approve...well, it wasn't his decision, not really, so the entire argument was moot.

' _A bit not good,_ ' the doctor's voice called through Sherlock's mind as he took both mugs and made his way upstairs, cringing as the arthritis in his knees flared. Of all the maladies of old age, the hundreds of interesting and complex sicknesses that could have afflicted his body, Sherlock had to be saddled with something as common as arthritis.

The universe really was unfair.

Treading softly when he reached the second floor, Sherlock entered the first bedroom on the right, surprised to see John reclined against the headboard. Quickly, Sherlock masked his features into something he hoped was apathy rather than the annoyance he truly felt as he approached the bed. 

“Sitting up today,” John proclaimed.

“You should have waited for me,” Sherlock lectured, his eyes noting the dots of perspiration on John's brow, the splotchy rouge of his cheeks, and the hard, harried breaths he took as he adjusted his back against the pillows.

“A man could die of old age waiting for you to make a cuppa.”

Sherlock snorted at the poor jest, purposely wriggling himself gracelessly next to John and upsetting the older man's position.

“Oi!” he grumbled, although his eyes did brighten when Sherlock handed him a steaming mug. “Oh, ta.”

He gripped the mug in his right hand, and Sherlock noted that John's fingers were trembling much worse today than they had been earlier in the week. He kept his own grip on the bottom of the mug until he was certain John had a firm grasp of it, watching intently to be sure none of the scalding tea sloshed over the lip and onto John's lap. He also spared a glance at John's left arm, limp and lifeless at his side, and frowned.

ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as motor neuron disease but more commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease. One in every fifty thousand people in the United Kingdom were diagnosed with it each year, and John, _his_ John, had become that unlucky statistic.

It had started last autumn, when John began noticing that his left hand was weakening, which was very odd since it was his dominant one. He found he had trouble gripping pens, typing, holding a cup of tea, and even raising his arm to wave at the neighbours. Twitchy feet, slurred speech, and a troubling difficulty in walking had urged him to make an appointment with is doctor, and before Christmas, John had been given the dreadful diagnosis.

The long range outlook was grim: muscle atrophy, dysarthria, dysphagia, dyspnea, and inevitably, death. And all the while as his body stopped functioning, while his muscles would become useless, his limbs dead weight, his speech incomprehensible, and his organs weak, John's mind would remain as sharp as ever. Every day that the disease took a little bit more away from him, John would be conscious, and competent. He would know what was happening and be unable to control it, merely witness as he became a person trapped in a shell that looked like a man.

And to be diagnosed in his eighties, well...it was only a matter of time before John's body would succumb to the disease completely, his throat eventually refusing to swallow, his lungs refusing to breathe, his heart refusing to beat.

A year, if that.

And that was nine months ago.

Of course, John's physician had wanted to put him in an institution, one where he could be monitored by young, able bodied professionals with pitying eyes and indifferent expressions as he died a little more each day. Sherlock would hear none of it, and John had insisted that he would rather enjoy the small comforts of his home rather than a hospital in his last months. With just the barest aid from Mycroft, John was cocooned back in the cottage he shared with Sherlock, tended to daily by his best friend and visited by a nurse every other afternoon.

His left arm had been the first to suffer the full effects of the disease shortly after his diagnoses, now a limp appendage that hung at his side as a grim promise of the doctor's fate. It wasn't long after that his legs began to degenerate, stranding John in bed most days, and lately his breathing was laboured even as he slept. His speech already occasionally slurred and his voice was a gravely whisper, not the strong, commanding captain's tone he'd once had.

John Watson was dying. The evidence was perfectly clear for any blind idiot to deduce, let alone Sherlock Holmes.

The retired consulting detective watched with a sad, uncommonly quiet patience as John took ages to raise the mug to his lips, taking a long, indulgent sniff of the tea before slowly sipping the hot drink. His hand still trembled and he dribbled a little, dots of tea staining the collar of his dressing gown. John cussed as he lowered the mug, throwing his shaky hand a hateful glare.

“I can't keep doing this,” he muttered.

Resigned.

Sad.

“I know,” Sherlock said. “Drink your tea.” He gently pushed the mug back towards John's lips, sipping his own tea as he encouraged his friend to do the same. For a few minutes they drank in silence, two old men who had seen many years together, sharing a lovely, hot cup of tea. It was refreshingly domestic, cosy even, but then nothing had ever stayed quiet in the lives of these two for very long.

“You do, don't you?” John asked, tired blue eyes straining to focus on sharp cheekbones and white curls. “You know what I'm saying...what I'm telling you I want...Sherlock, I'm asking –”

“Please give me some credit, John,” Sherlock scoffed as he rolled his eyes. “Just because I'm a retired consulting detective doesn't mean my skills for observation and deduction aren't as sharp as when we first met.”

“I'm just checking,” John teased, his eyes crinkling with a hint of mischief. “After all, you have been out of the game for eight –”

“Five.”

“We moved to Sussex eight years ago.”

“Yes, but I only ceased helping New Scotland Yard and the local constabulary five years ago,” Sherlock corrected. “And I still take the odd private ca—”

“Ah yes, the mystery of Mr Brett's tipped cows. Although, I never would have suspected it was the poor farmer himself.”

“Neither did he, but then again, no one really has control over themselves when they're sleepwalking. It was a boring case, anyway.”

John chuckled, his shoulders quaking joyously until he began to cough with a distressing brutality. Sherlock managed to save John's mug as the man heaved loud, dry coughs, his body shaking with violent effort as his lungs burned for breath. Sherlock had learned long ago that there was nothing he could do to ease John's pain during one of his fits other than sit loyally at his side and rub his back, waiting.

“Can you drink a little more?”

John didn't answer, his face maroon as his eyes watered and spittle gathered on his chin. He tried to push the mug away but Sherlock insisted, urging John to take several small sips before helping to ease the man against the pillows. With an uncharacteristic patience, Sherlock waited as John relaxed and breathed, his chest rising and falling shakily, his body exhausted with even that small effort.

“Dying is so inconvenient,” John sighed. Sherlock snorted and lay beside him. “I wonder, sometimes,” John mused, a fragile sort of longing in his voice making him sound like a little boy, “what my life would have been like if I'd never met you.”

“Dull, I imagine.”

“Yes. Yes, it certainly would have been that. Do you...do you think I'm silly?”

“For?”

“For wondering.”

“No,” Sherlock answered after a brief pause. He turned to look at John, his lips quirking in a fond smirk. “I find myself doing the same thing. Quite frequently.”

“I don't...you...my life has been the most...you've made it the best –”

“Don't blubber, John. Finish your tea.”

“I don't want the damn tea!” John snapped. “You've made it too sweet. Fifty years, Sherlock. Fifty years you've been making my tea wrong, and that's not even the point! I'm trying to tell you that I want to die! I'm ready to die and I can't do a damned thing about it because of this bloody disease! I need your help.”

“I know,” Sherlock answered, his voice surprisingly tender. “Drink your tea.” And holding the mug for him, Sherlock coaxed John into drinking all that was left of the too sweet tea.

“Thank you,” John whispered, watching as his friend swallowed his own tea in two large gulps. His tongue felt sticky and thick in his mouth, the familiar flavours of Tips, milk and honey coating his cheeks. But there was something else, something different...something not right. Swirling his tongue against his teeth, John's brows furrowed as he chased after the subtle hint of...something.

He noticed Sherlock had stilled beside him, and looked over to discover the man was watching him with a keen interest as he waited for John to draw his conclusions. With a trembling hand, John snatched Sherlock's mug from him, worry rising in his throat as his friend didn't put up a struggle. There was less than a dribble left in the mug, but John tipped his head back and drank, the same strange taste, diluted but undoubtedly there, soaking into his tongue.

A memory, one from so very long ago, of foggy moors, giant hounds, horrific hallucinations, and too sweet coffee swirled within John's mind.

“Sherlock, what have you done?”

“I'm helping you. Like you asked.”

“Helping me to die?”

“Us. Helping us both,” Sherlock replied, too calm to be comforting to John. If he had been capable, John would have punched his best friend in the face.

“I never meant for you to –”

“I'll not live without you, John,” Sherlock declared, and though his tone was as smooth as a loch on a hazy summer afternoon, there was a passionate, desperate madness that shone from his eyes. It was a look John knew he didn't stand a chance arguing with in perfect health, let alone as a dying old man. It was obvious Sherlock had made up his mind and there was nothing that John could do or say to make him change it, no matter how much he wanted to.

And just like that, with nothing more than a look that spoke surer and deeper than words ever could, John accepted Sherlock's logic and resigned himself to the facts. It didn't matter how mad he was, or how helpless he felt, or how reckless he believed Sherlock was acting, nothing could be done to sway the man. Like he had been doing for fifty years, John let Sherlock do as he pleased, and went along with the brilliant idiot's plan.

“Selfish arse,” he chortled with a gruff fondness, eyes beginning to water. “You would do this, make a decision that affects us both without bothering to consult me.”

“On the contrary John, the decision has been yours from the start. You want to end your pain and suffering, you've made up your mind to do it but you need my help to execute your plan. I should think it was obvious that I wouldn't remain here without you.”

“But the work –”

“ _Retired_ consulting detective.”

“Your experiments –”

“Are done. I've even labelled the more potent moulds so that when the cottage is sorted some stuttering buffoon doesn't inhale the mortierella wolfii.” 

“Your bees –”

“Will thrive without me just as bees have done for the last twenty-seven million years. Besides, what use would I have for them once you're gone? There would be no one for me to share their honey.”

“You can't just decide to die because of me, Sherlock,” John chided, knowing he'd already lost the battle, but needing to voice his protests all the same.

“I already have once, if you'll recall.”

Sherlock had tucked his chin against his chest as he practically whispered his reply. That particular point in their history was not one either cared to revisit often, and The Fall (as both had taken to referring said event) was only ever mentioned in serious circumstances.

“No, no, that's not fair,” John argued. “That was different and...just...this isn't the same thing.”

“How?”

“You jumped to save my life. You killing yourself _because_ I'm dying is the exact opposite of what you did!”

Sherlock sighed, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling as if he were the most put-upon human in the world for having to discuss the finer definition of what constituted good and not good suicide. John was being deplorably, if predictably, dense about the situation.

“What's done is done, John, and it hardly seems conducive to spend our last...seven minutes, arguing over a moot point,” Sherlock declared.

“Seven minutes?”

“And twenty-five seconds.”

“The tea, Sherlock. What did you –”

“A sedative,” he answered before digging in his pockets and holding out his open palm for John to see.

There were two pills resting innocuously in Sherlock's hand. White. Pasty. No more than half an inch long. And identical.

“Is this –”

“We need to swallow them within the next minute. The sedative will put us to sleep as the poison enters our bloodstream. We'll be unconscious before our organs begin shutting down. It's clean...and rather painless.”

John reached for one of the pills, his hand remarkably steady as he held the capsule between them.

“Our first night together,” he joked, eyes going glassy as fat tears edged out of the corners of his crow's feet to trail down his cheek. He stared into Sherlock's eyes and saw clearly the memory of two men in the prime of their lives, chasing down a mad serial killer cab driver through the streets of London.

“It seemed appropriate,” Sherlock mumbled, looking away

“Sentiment.”

“Yes,” Sherlock agreed, snorting in disgust, which only made John giggle, the sound resonating like an echo around them, a thousand other laughs raising from the hidden hollows of fifty years’ worth of memories. Chuckles over breakfast, chortles at St. Bart's, uproarious howls across failed experiments, silent shoulder shakes shared in the doorway of 221 B, and giggles, so many wonderful, perfectly inappropriate giggles at crime scenes.

There had been tears, and anger, and betrayal, and misunderstandings, and hurt, certainly more than fifty years' worth, but none of that mattered. Because the laughter, John's panting, sputtering snickers and Sherlock's deep, rumbling cackles, had coloured their lives together with so much happiness.

It really had been a very good life.

Five minutes and two seconds.

Keeping his eyes trained on Sherlock, John raised the pill to his lips. Sherlock did the same. Together they nodded. Together they swallowed the capsules. Together they laid down in the bed. John took Sherlock's hand in his, squeezing the thin, bony fingers, rubbing his thumb along gnarled knuckles.

“I love you, Sherlock” John whispered.

He felt the man beside him squeeze his hand. Silence filled the bedroom as precious minutes ticked by, each man finding comfort in the quiet even as they struggled to say everything that needed to be said before it was too late.

One minute and thirty-three seconds

“I should have told you more,” Sherlock whispered, true regret tinting his confession. “I should have found a way to tell you every day.

“Idiot,” John chided fondly, raising their linked hands up to his mouth to plant a kiss on the back of Sherlock's palm. “You did.”

Smiling, a truly content John Watson smile that hadn't graced the man's features since his diagnosis last December, John placed their entwined fingers over his heart. It was peaceful, Sherlock's hand over his heart, able to pick up every even, slowing rhythm. Ever the doctor, John pressed two fingers to Sherlock's pulse at his wrist, counting the beats.

They were in sync.

“How much longer, Sherlock?”

“Forty seconds.”

“Forty seconds and we'll go to sleep...we'll never wake up.”

“No.”

Forty seconds left after fifty years.

John wished they had more time.

John could feel the sedative taking effect, the tension in his muscles easing, his body going lax and his breathing getting deeper. It was getting harder to keep his eyes open, and for a moment, John was afraid, but then Sherlock squeezed his hand, reminding him that he wasn't alone. It was selfish, but John was glad for that.

“We'll be together,” he stated heavily, struggling to keep his eyes open.

“Yes,” Sherlock answered, his voice guttural, filled with absolute certainty.

Eighteen seconds.

Knowing he wanted Sherlock to be the last thing he saw, John sluggishly turned to look at his partner. Sherlock was staring right back at him, sea foam coloured eyes alight with so much tenderness, so much sentiment, John felt truly blessed to have been given a lifetime with this madman.

“Are you ready, John?” Sherlock asked, his last words to the world.

Seven seconds.

Feeling his eyes close, John smiled, his last gift to his lifelong partner.

“Oh God, yes.”

Zero.

The sedative took full effect. Sherlock and John fell asleep for the last time. To Sherlock's credit, the poison was quick, efficient, and like he'd promised, painless. Two last breaths were expelled, mingling in the space between both men like a goodnight kiss. Two hearts in sync slowed and stopped. Two bodies were left behind, hands tangled together. Two souls moved together towards the biggest adventure left for humankind to discover.

Because death was the last great mystery, and wherever there was a mystery (and this one was most definitely a ten), there would always be Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson.      

  


**Author's Note:**

> Chinese translation: [Endings/终局](http://221dnet.211.30i.cn/bbs/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=5065)  
> There is a beautiful fanart accompanying this post, so scroll down and check it out!


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